LF Networking Unites End-to-End Open Network Stack, Simplifies Open Source Software Consumption

Open Source Networking Continues Cross-Community Harmonization with Verification Expansion, Global Tour, Industry partnerships and platform releases

AMSTERDAM – Open Networking Summit Europe — September 25, 2018 —  LF Networking (LFN), which facilitates collaboration and operational excellence across open networking projects like ONAP and OPNFV, today announced continued ecosystem value chain disruption across its projects.

Collectively, LFN projects and communities are already easing deployment of open network technologies through strong collaboration between end users, developers, and vendors to deliver enhanced platform releases, forge new partnerships, and innovate on open networking technologies.   

“We are delighted to celebrate the growth and momentum of LFN and its key projects,” said Arpit Joshipura, General Manager of Networking at Linux Foundation. “The open networking stack is taking shape as LFN projects collaboratively enhance cross-community integration, ease deployments and bring cohesion to the ecosystem.  As we look ahead to next-gen network requirements, continuing to harmonize remains a top priority to further enable businesses across industries to maximize their open source deployments.”

Since its formation in January 2018, LFN has united vendors, operators, service providers, and users working towards the common goal of redefining how networks are created to deliver a new generation of services. LFN’s 100+ member organizations, which now enable close to 70 percent of the world’s mobile subscribers, represent all aspects of the networking industry working together across the entire network stack. The latest cross-project initiatives and milestones further enhance cross-stack integration to accelerate next-generation technologies.

Compliance and Verification Program Expansion

The growth and expansion of both breadth and depth of Compliance and Verification programs remains a key focus area. Launched earlier this year with a focus on infrastructure software at the NFVI/VIMlayer, the OPNFV Verified Program (OVP) issued its second test suite release that brings deeper and more extensive testing capabilities. The compliance program aimed at demonstrating readiness and availability of commercial NFV products has already verified products from Ericsson, Huawei, LG Uplus, Nokia, Wind River and ZTE.  Since launch, OVP has doubled the number of mandatory tests from 215 to 443 and calls for verified products to complete additional functional, security, high-availability and VNF interoperability-focused tests.

OPNFV and ONAP are also collaborating to extend the scope of the program to include VNF verification. With an initial focus on VNF packaging requirements and a vision to improve VNF on-boarding, ongoing-management, and performance, the VNF compliance program is expected to launch in early 2019. The program is also in process of scaling testing support through work on building a third-party lab ecosystem.

OSN Days

In collaboration with the global networking community, LFN will host another iteration of its Open Source Networking Days (OSN) beginning October 12. Hosted by open source networking ecosystem partners, the one-day events —occurring across APAC, China and North America —bring together a diverse lineup of expert speakers to explore the state of the industry; the projects that make up the open source networking stack, and the use cases enabled by network transformation. Find an OSN Days event near you and reserve your spot, visit here.

Project Deployments & Milestones

LFN’s projects continue their momentum with new platform releases and deployments:

• FD.io: FD.io’s latest release, 18.07, brings benefits of an “open” hardware lab supported by a Continuous System Integration and Testing (CSIT) infrastructure into full display with testing available across both multi-vendor hardware targets and multi-generational hardware from a common vendor.

The FD.io community will host a Mini Summit at KubeCon+CloudNativeCon North America in Seattle, Monday, December 10. Community experts will share information about the projects, use cases, capabilities, how FD.io enables cloud native network functions, cross-community integration with Kubernetes and other open sources communities, tools and many more exciting topics. For more details or to submit a presentation, visit https://fd.io/event/fd-io-mini-summit-at-kubecon-cloudnativecon-seattle-wa/

• OpenDaylight: OpenDaylight recently issued its latest release, Fluorine. Fluorine adds critical features for operationally-driven networking use cases, including cloud and edge computing, service function chaining, WAN connectivity, and application-level traffic optimization. Fluorine makes it easier for solution providers to deploy new use cases.

• ONAP: The ONAP community will demonstrate advanced ONAP orchestration capabilities for cross-operator multilayer services, showcasing the new Cross Domain and Cross Layer VPN (CCVPN) use case for ONAP Casablanca onstage at ONS Europe and in the LFN booth. Member organizations China Mobile, Vodafone and Huawei have collaborated to to demonstrate interoperability with third-party SDN controllers and interworking across service providers.  

Development of ONAP’s third release, ONAP Casablanca, is underway with expected availability later this year.  

• OPNFV: Further cementing integration between open source and open standards, OPNFV recently hosted its fifth OPNFV Plugfest alongside ETSI’s third Plugtest at ETSI’s headquarters in southern France. Bringing commercial vendors and open source community members together to perform end-to-end network service testing, integrating the OPNFV Fraser release, and  fostering joint collaboration between the OPNFV and ETSI NFV industry specification group (ISG) communities was the goal. Key outcomes ranged from joint MANO API testing, Open Source MANO (OSM) project integration, service function chaining (SFC) testing, and additional spec tests and benchmarks. Read the full results from the report here.

Development of OPNFV’s next release, OPNFV Gambia, is underway with expected availability later this year.

• Tungsten Fabric: LFN’s newest project, Tungsten Fabric,  recently announced the launch of its new quick-start environment—Carbide—hosted at Amazon Web Services (AWS). With Carbide, new users can now get started with a scalable, open source multi-cloud, multistack SDN networking platform in 15 minutes.

As LFN continues to expand, opportunities to engage with the global community are rapidly available. All interested in open source networking are invited to join the community at upcoming events, including OSN Days and KubeCon and CloudNativeCon,  December 10-13, 2018 in Seattle. To learn more about LFN’s event presence, please visit here.

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world’s top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and industry adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org.

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Media Contact

Jill Lovato

The Linux Foundation

jlovato@linuxfoundation.org